‘Changeling’ is a simple, exceptional movie

Director Clint Eastwood’s lengthy, straightforward period drama “Changeling” is hardly an agent of cinematic change. But it is solid, old-school, epic storytelling boosted by another powerfully luminous lead performance by Angelina Jolie, an exceptionally well-selected supporting ensemble and consummate production values.

Thanks to some good luck and good reporting by its screenwriter, former Los Angeles journalist J. Michael Straczynski, it dredges up a seminal but forgotten case from the late 1920s. The interesting true saga around the investigation of a missing 9-year-old boy ended up transforming the city.